


the old hen (she cackled)

by concertconfetti



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Graphic Description of Corpses, I don't think it's too graphic but tagging just in case, Investigations, Murder, Noonwraiths (The Witcher), Parent Death, The Inherent Tragedy of Witchers, The Law of Surprise (The Witcher), Trans Eskel (The Witcher), Whump, implied racism, the racism is against fantasy lineages to be clear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28196919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concertconfetti/pseuds/concertconfetti
Summary: Early in the season, a young Eskel stops in one of the mountain villages not far from Kaer Morhen. The alderman listed a short, detail-light request for a Witcher - monsters were plaguing the ruins of the old town square. When the alderman explains that a noonwraith had been seen by farmers on the edge of town, Eskel starts a hunt that will strike at the core of his childhood memories and the innocence he lost so very long ago.
Comments: 28
Kudos: 46
Collections: The Witcher Quick Fic #02





	the old hen (she cackled)

**Author's Note:**

> While this fic doesn't explore anything too graphically, there are mentions of burnt corpses, rot, and decay. There are mentions of shitty practices on behalf of the Wolf and Griffin Schools and the shit they put AFAB children through - I want to reiterate that Eskel has always seen himself as male and is trans, despite what was done to him as a child. 
> 
> In his memories, I refer to Eskel using the gender-neutral They because well... he was three and didn't know what a gender even was.

"Aren't you a little young for a Witcher?" Eskel resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the alderman sized him up. Again. This happened often enough - in the long term, he was fresh out of the keep, still a "yearling" to most of the older witchers. Enough of them called him "pup" still that it was easy to forget he was a man of thirty-five summers. 

Still, the implication that _looking young_ made his position dubious was exhausting. The alderman - pale and unmarred by the sun - was almost certainly younger than Eskel. 

"Look," Eskel said, pulling his medallion out of his gambeson. The silver pendant stood out starkly against his ocher brown skin. "This is a medallion of the Wolf School, something they don't just give out. More than enough of your village has caught me out based on my eyes alone. Can we please just get on with this? If I'm truly not a witcher, I'll die, and you won't be out any coin." _Might not be out any coin either way,_ he thought bitterly. It was the start of the season, and Eskel wasn't quite out of the coin, but he was hoping to avoid starving this year. 

"Right," the alderman - Gareth, his name was, or something close - said, still hesitant. He pulled out a slip of parchment and handed it to Eskel. "I didn't post the whole thing on the board to avoid scaring folk. There's some sort of wraith out in the ruins of the old village." 

"Ruins?" Eskel arched a brow. "How old?" 

"About twenty-summers," Gareth grunted, gritting his teeth. "Group of raiders came and burned the place down. The local lordling didn't want to spare the protection for such a small holding." 

Eskel grunted. If he was honest, he didn't care much for the local Kaedweni lords, but he also tried to stay out of it as much as possible. It wasn't his job to protect people from poticitians or lordlings - just monsters, though that line between them was increasingly difficult to find. "Wraiths aren't often found alone…" he trailed off looking over the description - a lone woman, clad in a patch-work dress. Luring… "children? It's luring in children?" 

"So the witnesses claim, and we have had a few children disappear lately," Gareth said quietly. "Honestly, at this point I _hope_ it's a wraith of some sort because the alternatives…"

Eskel considered this for a moment. It could easily be a witch - a shitty, asshole mage, but Geralt had run into some utter asshats farther south - or someone in the village. But the description was too specific, too spot-on to be made up by a murderer. At least he hoped so. 

"50 gold," Eskel said, "and I'll check out the rest of the ruins and make sure there aren't other, surprise wraiths." 

Gareth let out a breath; Eskel knew 50 was a big ask, but if he started out harsh, he might just make a living wage. "Agreed," the alderman said, holding out his hand. "I'll have everything ready for you by the time you bring proof of work. You have free range of the village and a room at the inn if you should need it." 

Eskel shook the alderman's hand and got to work.

* * *

"She took three girls." The farmers were not exceptionally forthcoming with information, but the goatherd's wife flagged Eskel down as he walked between homes, gently knocking on doors and generally being on his best behavior. Goodwoman Gemma held a kid goat close to her chest and pressed her young son even closer to her hip; she was wrinkled, tanned and tired, and above all, wary of Eskel. "Hasn't taken any lately, but the sun's not been out," Gemma said in hushed tones. "No one likes talkin' about it, the old part of the village. Folk there had bad luck." 

"What kind?" Eskel found himself asking. Not likely to be useful information, but if there is a curse or something it would explain -- 

"Oh, the normal sort," Gemma said softly. "Few ladies lost their children to plague. One woman lost her daughter to a Witcher. And then there was the raid…" 

A Witcher? Eskel raised an eyebrow. "Witchers don't take girls," he grunted, because, usually, they didn't and that was a useful rumor to prop up. 

"They took this one," she said firmly, "maybe they weren't _your_ Witchers, but a man came through and took Gretchen's girl. She didn't put up a fight - must have promised her child to the Law of Surprise. Gretchen would've fought like hell, otherwise." Gemma glowered and shot a look toward the burned-out husk of the old village. 

Eskel sighed. "The wraith - is she new?" 

Gemma tsked before looking back at Eskel. "Does it matter?"

"Older the wraith is, the harder it will be to remove her." 

"I don't know," Gemma said, adjusting her hold on her son. "Isn't that your job?" She turned and walked her son back into their home. Eskel sighed. At least the information she gave helped. He rubbed a hand over his face and made his way to the inn. He could set his stuff down and regroup there. 

The inn offered only communal sleeping, though it appeared the villagers managed to find a… private corner for Eskel. Or rather, they were isolating him from the rest of the tavern. That suited him fine - folk were less likely to touch his stuff or ask questions. The innkeeper gave him an apologetic once over. 

"Most folk here never seen a witcher," he said as he set down a bowl of stew and a watered-down ale. "But we've had some good ones come through here." The innkeeper was an older human, his pink skin weathered by his years living in a mountain town. And, apparently, willing to talk. 

"You're not far from the Wolf School," Eskel said casually as he organized his potions. "I heard a woman lost her kid to the Law of Surprise. Bad luck." 

"Ah, Gretchen, yes," the innkeeper said with a frown. "Shame what happened to her." Eskel raised an eyebrow but otherwise continued with his potions. The man chuckled and continued. "Alderman probably told you that side of the village burned down twenty years ago, and he's right, but he's also new to the area. There were still a few families that lived out that way until last growing season. Gretchen, an elven family, and our old blacksmith - Irna, I think his name was. I didn't know him well." 

"What happened to them?" 

"Local lord found out they were squatting in the old village," the innkeeper said, staring down at the table.

_Shit._ Eskel inhaled. "Anything left of them?" 

The innkeeper shrugged. 

Gretchen's home still stood, as it turned out. Eskel eased his way through its fractured doorway and did his best to take in the small details - splintered floorboards, a discarded dagger. The blood. Gods there was still the faint smell of iron from the dried blood in the floor, the rotting furniture. The smell of mold and burnt wood clogged Eskel's senses and he didn't know where to start looking given the waste of a broken life around him.

How the fuck was Geralt so good at this? 

Eskel took a fortifying breath, closing his eyes and rolling his neck. _One thing at a time, Kel,_ he told himself, and he got back to work. 

Gretchen lived a simple life, based on the sparse belongings left in the husk of her home. Blankets and a small quilt were left moldering on the small bed; a single cast iron skillet sat in the fireplace, as if it'd been tossed there in the aftermath. The quilt, he looked at more closely - he wasn't certain, yet, that Gretchen was the wraith, but she seemed a good candidate, which meant finding something that belonged to her. 

The quilt was barely recognizable, discolored by the elements and fire, but something stirred in Eskel as he turned it over in his hands. His fingers shook as he traced the hen stitched lovingly into the hand-me-down fabric. 

_The old hen she cackled_

_"Hush now, Kelly, hush," a soft voice filled the child's ears as they wailed, clutching desperately at their blanket. An older man, a Witcher, their mother called him, stood big and broad in the entry of their home. "Vesemir will take good care of you, I promise."_

The quilt fell from Eskel's hands and he shook his head, trying desperately to dislodge the memory. This… this _wasn't_ his mother's home. He was projecting memories onto this poor woman's life - her child could have easily been taken by a Griffin or a Cat, given the timeline. There was no reason to think… to assume that…

A harsh breath burst its way out of Eskel's chest and he cast his eyes around the floor, looking for something, anything else to focus his mind back on the hunt when he spotted it. A change in the wood grain, easily ignored as a rushed and cheap patch job, but something Gemma said stuck in his mind. 

Gretchen would have fought like hell.

If she was squatting here, and there were others in danger, would Gretchen have protected them? Eskel strode toward the incongruous floorboards and toed at the gap in the flooring. A trapdoor. He squatted down and carefully lifted the door. There was a torch on the floor of this crude basement, and Eskel lit it with a snap of his fingers before jumping down.

What he saw turned his stomach. 

Charred corpses - three elves and a dwarf - flash burned by magic, if the buzzing of his medallion was anything to go by. Lordling used a mage to do his dirty work, then. Eskel scowled. No human corpse, nothing left of Gretchen's fight but the house.

And a noonwraith. 

Eskel carefully brought each of the corpses up from their dark dank prison and set to work making a pyre. No good getting rid of a noonwraith if other wraiths sprang up in its absence. It was tiring work, made worse by the storm brewing in Eskel's head. He had nothing to lure the wraith out of hiding - everything in the home was damaged beyond recognition. He wondered, vaguely, if giving the corpses a proper funeral would call the enraged Gretchen out. 

It didn't, of course - Eskel watched the remains throw smoke into the sky and he turned everything over. The noonwraith was drawing children to her because she'd lost a little girl. Or, Eskel thought, _a child she thought was a little girl._ Witchers, at least from the Wolf or Griffin School, were not women by virtue of… well, a lot of things. The mutagens, first and foremost. Any girls brought to the school were given mutagens before the Grasses, even, to prevent them from… developing. (Some, like Eskel, preferred it that way. Others? Well, others died.)

There was nothing left of Gretchen's body, and he doubted she was given a proper funeral. Moreover, there was nothing left of Gretchen's _life_. This meant he had two options - wait until the noonwraith tried to take another child (and risk a child, which was unthinkable) or come back in the summer, when noonwraiths were active (and risk losing more children). 

_Or…_ The bottom fell out from Eskel's stomach and his heart clenched tightly in his chest. 

If his memory _wasn't_ a projected one, Eskel might have a piece of Gretchen's life with him. He dug through one of the pouches he kept on his belt and pulled a small fabric cat from it. It looked brittle and ephemeral in his giant hand. The last thing his mother gave him. Eskel swallowed and slipped the cat back into its home before getting to work. 

Eskel trudged through the fields toward a small copse of trees and gathered an armful of sticks and branches. Mechanically, he found himself wandering back into the old town square and setting the fire - only one small burst of Igni and Eskel was facing the end of his childhood. Again. Probably for the fifth or sixth time, if he were to count. His hands flexed painfully at his sides. 

_The old hen she cackled, she cackled on the fence_

There are a few things that are common knowledge among the folk of the Continent, concerning Witchers. First, that Witchers do not feel emotions (Eskel screwed his eyes shut and willed the stinging tears away; he had only a vague hallucination to mourn). Second, there were no Female Witchers (Eskel hadn't been a girl for very long - he remembered, vaguely, the threat of puberty, the sheer panic in the eyes of the Older Witchers when Eskel reported monthly bleeding and he remembered, just as clearly, that being taken away from him). Witchers don't have families, Witchers are barely human. Noonwraiths are not human any longer. 

Eskel pulled out the cat - _his_ cat - and tossed it into the fire. And, for a horrible moment, nothing happened despite the creak of Eskel's grip against the leather grip of his silver sword. For a terrible, horrible moment Eskel thought, perhaps, he'd been wrong. 

Then a scream ripped through the still air of the village's necrotic ruins, and a noonwraith drifted toward Eskel. The Witcher let out a shuddering breath; in a fluid motion, he cast a Yrden trap on the ground and drew himself into a proper fighting stance. The wraith was no different from any other wraith - children had died because of ~~his mother~~ this monster, and he needed to dispatch the wraith quickly. The wraith screamed at him once more, slowed by Yrden, it's tongue shaking and dripping on the ground, using the ends of it's faded red dress to kick up dust. 

And Eskel lunged.


End file.
